Tag Archives: Chickasaw Freedmen

Pink Bruner was serving a life sentence at Leavenworth Penitentiary for the murder of Marshal Hugh Myers in May 1900, though everyone agreed he was not the man who pulled the trigger.

As part of the Curtis Act, a federal law that resulted in the break up of tribal governments, Pink, his mother, Rose, and his siblings were enrolled as members of the Chickasaw Nation in 1898. Rose, born in 1842, had been the slave of Holmes Colbert, according to her Dawes card. As Chickasaw Freedmen, Rose and her children each received an allotment of 40 acres of land in Indian Territory in 1906. The following year Indian Territory merged with Oklahoma Territory to become the state of Oklahoma.

Pink’s 40 acres, in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, was in the center of an oil belt and had value far beyond ordinary farmland. It was worth about $1000 — a fortune for a man in his circumstances.

The Leavenworth warden received many letters from people on the outside who wanted Pink’s allotment. Some claimed, incorrectly, that it was about to be sold for back taxes.

Moman Pruiett, find-a-grave

Pink’s attorney at his murder trial was an ex-criminal with a violent streak named Moman Pruiett. Moman was a talented but controversial criminal lawyer who bragged that of the 343 murder cases in which he’d defended the accused, 303 of his clients were acquitted. Unfortunately for Pink, he was one of Moman’s 40 clients who’d been convicted.

Moman probably had saved Pink from the hangman’s noose, but he claimed Pink owed him his allotment in payment for both his legal representation during the trial and as payment for work on a pardon or commutation of his sentence — prior to actually achieving a result. Pink tried desperately from prison to hold onto the only thing he had of value, and he refused to turn his allotment over to Moman Pruiett or anyone else.

The third suspect in the Myers murder, Ben Cage, using the alias Floyd or Walter Alexander, was jailed for drunkenness in Wewoka, Oklahoma, in July 1915. While in jail Ben boasted that he was the triggerman for the Myers murder. It was reported that Ben was tried in August 1915, but there was no record of his conviction and imprisonment. More than 15 years elapsed since the crime occurred, and in order to try him the court had to rely mostly on transcripts from Pink’s trial.

Pink’s sentence was commuted in March 1917 and he was released from Leavenworth. Lawyer Pruiett and E.G. Hall, an Oklahoma City businessman appointed his “first friend” out of prison, fought over the title to Pink’s land. It’s unclear which man finally managed to get his hands on Pink’s allotment, but without a doubt one of them did.

He dropped his nickname and returned to using his given name — Legus — after he was released from prison. Over the years he worked as a porter in a Muskogee grocery store, a laborer for a soft drink company in Oklahoma City and finally ended up living with a cousin and farming in Econtuchka, Oklahoma.

100 years has passed since Pink’s release from prison and Econtuchka is now a ghost town. Legus “Pink” Bruner’s burial place is unknown.

Featured photo: Pink Bruner’s second Leavenworth Penitentiary mugshot, taken prior to his release in 1917, National Archives, Kansas City, Missouri.

From Friday until Tuesday night the U.S. Court has been engaged in the trial of Pink Bruner for the killing of Hugh Myers, city marshal of the town of Davis, on May 5, 1900. The evidence showed that Bruner and two other negroes went to Davis on that evening, filled up on whiskey, and rode out of town firing their pistols in the air. That Myers followed them half a mile out to a lonely spot and was shot and killed. The government claims that it was done in pursuance of a conspiracy to entice Myers out of town and kill him, and while there is no evidence Bruner did the actual shooting, he was in the plot and helped on with the game; and it must be confessed that the prosecution made a very strong case.

— The Davis Weekly News (Davis, Indian Terr.), May 30, 1901

Marshal Hugh Myers road out to the west edge of Davis, a small town in Indian Territory, on a Saturday night in early May of 1900 to investigate gunshots. There he found three black men: Pink Bruner, Lyman Mahardy and Ben Cage. Myers exchanged gunfire with the men and took a bullet to his abdomen. He was able to get back to his home but the wound was fatal and he died within the hour. Before he died he told his family he believed he’d wounded one of the men.

Pink was wounded in his left leg above the knee.

The next day Pink was captured after he sought treatment for his leg wound. Lyman was also located and taken into custody. Ben Cage escaped.

Dawes Census Card (#431) for Rose Bruner and her children

Pink was a nickname. His given name was Legus and he was born in the tiny town of Sasakwa, Indian Territory, the oldest child of John Bruner and Rose Colbert Bruner. His father was a Seminole Freedman and his mother came from the Chickasaw Freedmen. The Chicksaw follow a system of matrilineal descent in which children are considered to be part of their mother’s clan.

Maintaining his innocence in Myers’ shooting, Pink claimed Lyman had a grudge against Myers and planned to kill him after luring him to a remote spot outside of town. Ben Cage was also indicted for the murder, however he remained at large.

The cases of the two men were separated and Pink was tried first. He was found guilty of first-degree murder on May 23, 1901 and sentenced to 99 years in the federal penitentiary.

Lyman’s trial was delayed until the following June. On June 28, 1902, he died in jail, apparently still awaiting trial. Death records were not kept until 1908, after Oklahoma became a state, so the cause of Lyman’s death is unknown.